God forgive them for saying so of a lady whose salt they had eaten
for so many years'. Le Vaisseau made no mention of the marriage to
Colonel McGowan; and from the manner in which he mentions it to Sir
John Shore it is clear that he, or she, or both, were anxious to
conceal it from the troops and from Sindhia before their departure.
She stipulated in her will that her heir, Mr. Dyce, should take the
name of Sombre, as if she wished to have the little episode of her
second marriage forgotten.
After the death of Le Vaisseau, the command devolved on Monsieur
Saleur, a Frenchman, the only respectable officer who signed the
covenant; he had taken no active part in the mutiny; on the contrary,
he had done all he could to prevent it; and he was at last, with
George Thomas, the chief means of bringing his brother officers back
to a sense of their duty. Another battalion was added to the four in
1787, and another raised in 1798 and 1802; five of the six marched
under Colonel Saleur to the Deccan with Sindhia. They were in a state
of mutiny the whole way, and utterly useless as auxiliaries, as
Saleur himself declared in many of his letters written in French to
his mistress the Begam.
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